Alan Peacock & Jack Wiseman 
Growth of Public Expenditure in the United Kingdom [PDF ebook] 

Originally published in 1961, this book became widely used as a textbook, as an important source of primary data on British government expenditure statistics and as the point of departure for further empirical and analytical studies of the behaviour of governments. The book was recognised as one of the formative influences in the development of a positive theory of government expenditure which sought to explain the size and structure of the system of public finance rather than justify it